Members of rock and pop bands from the island’s schools and music projects will be able to perform on the big stage this weekend, and play for the chance to be named the best young band on the island.

A battle of the bands is to take place at the Peel Centenary Centre over Sunday, May 25 and Monday, May 26, featuring bands from the youth music initiatives Rock Project and Soundcheck, along with a privately entered school band.

The band competition has been organised by Dave Rowles and members of the Rock Project team, and will see two levels of competition, with a junior level of musicians aged seven to 11 years of age and seniors aged up to 18 years of age.

Bands will compete in heats on the Sunday evening, followed by a finals concert held on Monday, with prizes of recording studio time, professional photo shoots and up to £400 on offer for the winning groups.

Both nights get underway from 6.30pm.

’It’s our first year of running this, and we hope to grow it year-on-year,’ said Dave.

’We know that for the three years that the Guild ran a battle of the bands, the competition just exploded, and became incredibly popular with local groups.

’Since they stopped running it this year, we thought that, seeing as there would have been bands already working towards it, and now have nowhere to play, we thought we’d put it on ourselves.’